Swatanter Kumar, J. - (1.) Dinesh Chandra Pandey, appellant herein, was appointed to the post of Civil Judge in the M.P. Judicial Service (Class II) on 27th January, 1982. On completion of the training period, he joined as Civil Judge, Dhamtari on 12th September, 1982. During his tenure as Civil Judge, certain irregularities were noticed by the competent authority and on 7th December, 1988, a charge-sheet was served upon him, primarily, on the ground that he was possessed of disproportionate money/assets to his known sources of income. He was served with a charge sheet containing two articles of charges. One out of them (Charge 2) had not been proved while other Charge (Charge 1) stood proved against the delinquent officer. Article 1 which had been established reads as under:That the said Shri D.C. Pandey while his posting as Civil Judge, Class-II and J.M.F.C. Raipur had a Bank account in State Bank of India Account No. SB/8833, the balance whereof swelled from Rs. 2170.01 to Rs. 35036.92 paise within the period from January 1984 to 6th May, 1985, his explanation in this behalf having been found unconvincing considering the disproportionateness of the said increase in his bank balance to his salary income and pattern and frequency of deposits the said increase in balance is capable of no other reasonable explanation than that of illicit gains as the source of money which renders his integrity gravely doubtful.
(2.) The allegations were denied by him and on 30th January, 1989 he submitted that he owns 37 acres of land in Bilaspur and has agricultural income to the extent of Rs. 50,000/- p.a. It is out of this agricultural income that he has been depositing amounts in the bank and has not committed any violation of service regulations or other offence which would attract disciplinary action against him. The competent authority decided to conduct a regular departmental enquiry and appointed Shri G.R. Pandya, District & Sessions Judge, Raipur as enquiry officer. Besides appointing an enquiry officer, the High Court also appointed Shri Ram Krishna Behar, Addl. Judge as Presenting Officer. During the course of enquiry, the appellant made an application for permission to engage a legal practitioner to assist him in the departmental enquiry. This request was declined by the High Court vide order dated 4th December, 1989. The appellant participated in the enquiry and the enquiry officer submitted his report on 4th April, 1990 and returned the finding of guilt against the appellant. The concluding paragraphs of the report read as under: Shri Pandey was saving Rs. 600/- p.m. out of his salary and, therefore, this amount was quite insufficient for making such a large saving. More saying of Shri Pandey received the amounts frequently from his mother is not sufficient. Something more was required to explain the deposits. This type of explanation was already given by Shri Pandey during the preliminary inquiry and was already found unsatisfactory, hence further opportunity was given to Shri Pandey, by holding this inquiry to give reasonable and convincing explanation regarding the source of his income. I am sorry to say that Shri Pandey could not assess the seriousness of the matter and went on repeating that the money was sent by his mother. The mother of Shri Pandey as well as the customers who had purchased the produce of the messenger who used to bring the money frequently from Bilaspur to Raipur have not been examined. Under these circumstances, bald statement of Shri Pandey that money was received by him from his mother does not appear to be correct. Thus, I come to the conclusion that charge No. 1 regarding the frequent deposits made by Shri Pandey within a span of short period is proved against him.
(3.) Disciplinary authority, after receiving the said report, issued show cause notice to the appellant on 16th March, 1991 informing the appellant that finding of the enquiry officer on Article (1) had been accepted and as to why punishment should not be imposed upon him to which he submitted a detailed reply. The disciplinary authority vide its order dated 10th June, 1992, opined that the stand taken by the appellant was not satisfactory and consequently, imposed the punishment of removal from service. The appellant preferred an appeal against this order before the Governor which also came to be dismissed vide order dated 3rd February, 1993. The order of removal from service, as confirmed by the appellate authority, was challenged by the appellant by filing a Writ Petition being Misc. Petition No. 3847 of 1992 in the High Court which also came to be dismissed by the Ld. Single Judge vide its order dated 1st July, 2003. Still dissatisfied with the judgment of the Court, Letter Patent Appeal was filed which also met the same fate and was dismissed by the Division Bench of the Madhya Pradesh High Court vide order dated 17th December, 2004. The legality and correctness of this order has been challenged by the appellant in the present appeal under Article 136 of the Constitution.;